My First P.C
I brought my first computer in 1990, at the Fort Hamilton Post exchange (PX) using my new military Deferred Payment Plan credit card, where I could charge for new uniforms on discount and the other feature of the plan was that I could charge for other things that was being sold at the PX.
I didn’t plan on buying a computer, I originally wanted to purchase a word processor, which would have fulfilled my writing aspiration needs. I saw that the PX had some word processor models that would have been satisfactory as far as what I wanted to do.
I was talking to the sales man and he was saying that they had the latest model of computers on sale. I initially told the sales man I wasn’t interested, and that I came to get a word processor. The sales man said two thought-provoking statements. He said, “the computer has a word processor, and since it is on sale it costs the same price as the word processor.” In essence I would get more bang from the buck if I brought the computer instead of the word processor.
O.K, I was sold, I paid $900.00 for a Hewitt Packard (HP) SX 486 Personal Computer (PC), with the monitor. Back in those days, the PC was bulky and the monitor was like a small television which was set on top of the PC.
The PC itself had two-disc drives, one was the 5.25 floppy disk and the other was the 3.5-inch disc. At this point in time the 3.5-inch disc was popular because the small size and hard casing made it durable and took up less space. Unlike the 5.25 floppy disc which was not durable it could bend and be damaged easily, the reason why it was called “floppy.” It was big and it took up a lot of space.
Un known to me was that the 5.25 was phased out, and that the SX 486 processor was on its way out, making way for the DX 486 processor. Also, six months later, the PC’s were sold with the Compact Disc Read Only Memory (ROM) drive and the 5.25 floppy disc drives were no longer put on the PC.
No wonder I got the HP SX 486 for such a cheap price, because the PX was clearing the shelves for newer models that were coming out. But it didn’t matter because the PC was still relevant and had programs that introduced me to the cyber world.
The PC came with Microsoft Windows already installed. Windows was the operating system, and back in those times it was the only commercial PC operating system around. Every software was manufactured to the specifications of Microsoft windows. The word processor was Microsoft Words, and Microsoft Notebook. Words was a superior to notebook.
The internet was not a popular as it is today, but it was around and it was much different of how the internet operates today. There were a lot of chat groups and message boards. Yeah, meeting people on line for dates was in its infancy and the pornography industry was making a foothold on the net.
To get on the internet, you had to subscribe to an internet company. The popular companies were America Online, Prodigy, Yahoo. The standard price was a monthly fee of $19.50 and additional charge of $2.95 per hour on the internet. To connect to the internet, it was done on the telephone line connected to the PC’s modem, further adding money to the phone bill. So, depending on how much time is spent connecting to the internet it could be expensive.
I subscribed to Prodigy where I cut my teeth learning how to navigate the internet. You see, back then the internet was not “user friendly.” In fact, there were very few user-friendly software.
If you didn’t learn how to navigate the PC and internet by trial and error, the software, used to come with a user manual, where the functions and how to use them were written down. The manuals decreased that learning curve if you actually read it.
Also, what I found out that using the PC and internet is very addictive, sometimes while using the PC I thought that I was on the PC or internet for an hour. But when I look at the clock, I realized that I’ve been on the internet for three hours of more.
That first computer is now somewhere buried in junk in my parents’ basement. But all in all I wouldn’t be an expert using a computer if I didn’t have it.
True_George 